Manuel's Take

Welcome to my report that covers puertorrican wrestling. First, let me introce myself. I'm Manuel Gonzalez and I has been a wrestling reporter for more than 6 years, first reporting for a newsletter named Wrestling Tribune, out of Brooklyn, NY. Later, in 1997 I began with reports to Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer and since then several magazines, websites and publications has used reports from me to cover the puertorrican scene.

Actually I'm planning to do a book on the history of professional wrestling in Puerto Rico and I have devoted a lot of time to get as much information as I can.

I will be covering the scene in Puerto Rico for this site and I will update the section on late wednesday or early thursday. But lets go to the information.

Puerto Rico wrestling scene is a hot one and since 1999 we are living in a wrestling war. World Wrestling Council, WWC, the promotion run by Carlos Colon and Victor Jovica, and the International Wrestling Association, Victor Quiñones's new project , are the two powerful promotions in the island, where other several indies also takes part of the business here. WWC has won TV ratings almost everyweekend, but IWA has began to increase their house shows, surpassing WWC on the last 2 months. But, who is really winning? Fans are the winners!

WWC, the promotion that has been around since 1974, have Carly Colón as the Universal Champion. Carly is Carlos elder male son. He is currently the World Tag Team Champion with mexican and forner WCW wrestler Konnan, when they beat the established team of Thunder & Lightning a couple of weeks ago. Carly, as a single wrestler, lacks charisma, according to fans, but has knowledge of wrestling and has done great matches with a lot of wrestlers, incluiding Curt Hennig, Vampiro, Mike Rotunda, among others, but his most hated enemy is actually Ray Gonzalez, with who he has traded the Universal Title several times.

Ray González, who is the actual TV champion, attacked Carlos Colón a couple of weeks back. Colón wrestle just one or two times a month. He is really in bad shape and rumors has him retiring before the end of the year.

One of the local heels are dominican wrestler El Bronco, who has been around since 1990. A great wrestler with great talking skills, is actually the WWC Dominican champion, but the title hasn't been mentioned on TV for a while.

Rico Suave, the son of WWE wrestler Jose Estrada, is now the WWC Caribbean champion, when he defeated two weeks ago Fidel Sierra, in a match where Fantasy, Sierra's manager, was handcuffed to a local female grappler named Sexy Marie. Tigresa is Marie's top challenger on the promotion and the other female that rarely appears on the promotion is Stacey Colón, Carlo's daughter, who rarely wrestles as she is not a wrestler.

Hercules Ayala lost a looser leaves WWC match to Ricky Santana. Ayala asked for a match when Santana attacked Ayala's son, who is training to become a wrestler, and Ayala, trying to get revenge on Santana, asked the match, where he lost. By the way, Santana is the booker of the promotion.

Other talent on the promotion is local wrestler Wilfredo Alejandro, Florida's Mr. Casanova, who is battling Eddie Colón, other of Carlos Colón so who is the current Junior Heavyweight Champion, Fidel Sierra (who has gone to do a tour to Peru), Brent Dail (a Dory Funk trainee), Mohammed Hussein (Loiue Fabiano), Super Gladiadores, one of them being Ricky Frontan, who wresled for a while in some Florida's indys, Jim Steele, who came from Japan with red and short hair, and WCW's Vampiro, who recently turned babyface and has been around for two months.

In the other promotion, the IWA, Primo Carnero, who worked as Big Guido at the ECW, is the IWA Champion. His top challenge came from Apolo, a muscular young wrestler that left the promotion last week to attend some personal business in USA as well do the WWA TV tapings. Also on top has been Glamour Boy Shane, who recently worked Japan. Ricky Banderas is other of the top wrestlers of the promotion, who along with Shane was been followed by Savio Vega, who is currently the general manager, along with the Tag Team champions Chicky Starr and Victor The Bodyguard, to send them out of the promotion.

The Junior Heavyweight champion is a young wrestler known as Stefano. He is currently feuding with a masked wrestler known as Diabólico. The Intercontinental champion is Chicano, other new talent, who is feuding with Anarchy, other young talent. Also Eric Alexander, who turned babyface last week, is on the line for the title. A referee, Pelayito Vazquez is fighting against Stefano because Stefano gimmick, a gay wrestler, has done several sexual manerism to the referee.

The hardcore champion is Huracan Castillo Jr, who is currently involved in a feud with Ozzie (WCW's) and Super Crazy and several wrestlers for the title, incluiding japanese wrestler Dragon Makabe.

Other talent of the promotion are Mr. Maniac, Super Mark, Bryan Madness, Agente Bruno.

Miguel Perez is the man in charge of the babyface band, collectively known as the People's Army, a charge that Victor Quiñones created for him to fight Savio Vega corporation.

Dutch Mantel, Savio and Luke Williams are currently the team of bookers of the promotion.

Some may ask that a big name is not mentioned in the report. Well, I must say Invader 1 quits WWC on April 17 after being almost 25 years on the promotion. Reports have him having a dispute with Carlos Colón over the booking. He has received offers from several indies, but haven't did a match since then. Rumors have him planning to create a promotion.

Other indies are the PRWA, BSP, BWA and EBW, among others. Those companies have great talent and some are using talent that worked either WWC or IWA, such as Herbert Gonzalez, Verdugo, Cobra, Black Boy, Richie Santiago, Wizard, among others. next week I will talk about any of them if something regarding them become available.

Well fans, that is all for today. Any questions regarding the action in Puerto Rico can be send to the e-mail manolo@prwrestling.com and for those who know spanish, I invite you to visit http://www.prwrestling.com to get later news and results from Puerto Rico and from worldwide in spanish.